


He Will See the Light of This World

by jessbethda



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Christianity, Destiel - Freeform, Episode: s04e01 Lazarus Rising, Ficlet, Gen, Hell Fic, If You Squint - Freeform, Judaism, M/M, Memory is Subjective, Mythology - Freeform, POV Third Person Limited, Seraph!Cas, Trueform Castiel, Wingfic, trueform!Cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-13
Updated: 2013-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-11 17:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/801248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessbethda/pseuds/jessbethda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean has always know that memory is reconstructive, not reproductive. The mind recreates memories as you pull them from the back of your long and short-term memories. It doesn't replay perfect images. He is pretty sure he remembers everything from hell. He knows he got out, but he never saw how.</p>
<p>So he isn't sure why he is so surprised when the creature that stands before him asks if Dean can remember what he looks like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Will See the Light of This World

**Author's Note:**

> I've been fairly liberal with Judaic and Christian mythos here. This is my interpretation of Trueform!Cas, mostly influenced by what Misha has said in interviews and what Judaism and Christianity say about the appearance of angels. Also, Cas is a Seraph.
> 
> The title comes from the New American Bible version of John 11:9-10, here quoted for your convenience:
> 
> "Jesus answered, 'Are there not twelve hours in a day? If one walks during the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.'"

Dean has always known that memory is reconstructive, not reproductive. Memory is always subject to change, new information constantly overlapping with old, creating new images each time you pull something from the depths of your long or short term memories. Like, for instance, hell. Dean can remember everything from hell, but the nightmares have started rewriting some of the real memories from the Pit, meshing the two separate horrors into one congruous agony. It's only been a few days since he got out, and he has barely noticed it happening, but the changes are there, small but significant. That's just how subjective memory is, really. He knows it isn't perfect.

So he isn't sure why he is so surprised when the creature that stands before him asks if Dean can remember what he looks like.

The creature - Castiel the angel, he knows, but its hard to put a name to a being he never thought existed - is regarding him with overt professional curiosity, and Dean feels like all he is to this thing is just a petri dish instead of a human being with feelings and memories. Well, reconstructed, muddled ones, but feelings and memories nonetheless.

Dean has seen the flash of lighting cast stark shadows of the walls of useless religious graffiti, and a full-body shudder ran through him when he did. They looked huge - that could have just been special effects - though also mangled and sparse, like they'd been torn at, and yet they still managed to look goddamn impressive.

And then Dean remembers to be pissed off. "Some angel you are. You burned out that poor woman's eyes." He backs himself away from Bobby and the open barn doors and turns his back to the table.

"I warned her not to spy on my true form." Castiel is saying, calm and smooth in the face of Dean's barely contained outrage. "It can be overwhelming to humans, and so can my real voice." He pauses and gives Dean a meaningful look. "But you already knew that." The angel has stepped forward once again, only a little more than a foot from Dean.

Dean isn't quite sure how to reply to that, and he just stands there, starring at Castiel starring back at him.

"I wonder, do you even remember what I looked like?" the angel says, and it sounds like he is trying to filter supersonic waves through a phone speaker. Seriously, though, that has got to hurt the thing's (His? Do angels have genders?) vocal chords to talk like that, like he's been gargling fucking gravel.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Dean shuffles his feet and grips the table behind him with all the weapons that had proved themselves to be as goddamn worthless as the symbols on the walls, needing some sense of stability. Heh. And he thought he would be ready for anything.

The angel is crowding close to him still, blood seeping into his white dress shirt and that bland, tan trench coat. God, couldn't he have a better sense of style? Then again, Castiel doesn't seem like the type of guy who needs to dress sharp to seem imposing; he's doing just fine against Dean, and Dean isn't one to feel intimidated, especially by someone significantly shorter. Dean isn't used to being crowded. Normally, he's the one doing the crowding.

Yeah. Dean's intimidated.

Castiel just stares at him for a moment, considering. "You think I looked like this when I raised you, don't you?"

Dean stares back. For a minute, he doesn't know what the angel - Castiel, dammit - wants him to say. "You didn't?"

"No, Dean. I didn't."

Dean tries desperately to recall what Castiel looked like in hell, but all he gets are snippets of excruciating, blinding light. And the soft sound of flutters. Which is odd, because in the years he spent in hell, all he could ever hear were screams, and yet the ephemeral flit of what he assumes were wings had overcome the sounds of audible gore to greet his ears.

He doesn't remember seeing wings, or even really seeing Castiel. Just the fire in this arms and the sonorous sound of wings lulling him to peace in the most unlikely of places.

Castiel invades his thoughts with that dissonant voice, so unlike the memory of those wings. "I'd forgotten how limited human perception really is." He is still staring, those sharp, intelligent blue eyes trying to rip apart everything Dean is and analyze it, just to sate his own sense of curiosity. "Your finite imagination isn't capable of grasping my true form without help."

The hand that had touched Bobby's forehead and dropped him like a fly is lifting up slowly. "Here," and the words are quieter, "let me show you."

Dean reflexively flinches when Castiel's hand reaches for the bare skin of his forehead, but as soon as those two fingers make contact, every little earthly fear dissipates. And the Fear of Hell returns.

It's short-lived, however, the enraged and terrified screams that are both his own and those of his victims on the rack drowned out by that fluttering he had remembered. And he isn't remembering. He's seeing this again. This is unadulterated by his brain's recall processes. This is _real_.

And then there is Castiel. Angel of the Lord. _Oh._

He's there before him, within that same body in the trench coat that Dean knows logically he has seen in the barn, that he's not actually in this place and this time, just seeing it over again, without the objectivity of the human consciousness. But there is more than that, like Castiel's human body is pulsing and holding something in, like some celestial object born of fire held within tupperware.

And Dean can start to see it. There is a creature much bigger than that human body in the barn, at least a thousand feet tall, massive and ethereal, and it is in this body and it is this body.  In a brief moment of insanity, Dean thinks that it would take a very fucking big needle for this creature to dance on.

The first thing that Dean really notices are the four faces. Which is odd, because there is only one head. Somehow the faces manage to all fit together, and yet each one is individual and complete, and to Dean it seems like they are all flickering past that face, one at a time, all wild and glorious. He recognizes the zebra first, then the cat and the monkey, and finally the lamb, and while the combination should be laughable, Dean can only gaze at it in wonder as each animal fights for dominance on the head of the angel.

The second thing that Dean notices is that the body from the barn does not actually hold the larger creature. The angel is holding the body, gingerly controlling it, as if it is a well-loved puppet through which the angel must act. The human body belongs to him, but it cannot truly be him. It is simply too finite. The angel makes the body reach out its hands to grab his shoulders, and Dean can feel the pain again, real and burning and unimportant in the face of this magnificent creation.

The wings, though. He can see Castiel's wings. There are six of the things. Two of them stem from the angel's ankles, covering his feet, the edges of the feathers grazing gently against the back of the human body. Another two come from the peaks of those glowing shoulders, spread out in full array, framing that multifaceted head. The final two jut out from the angel's back, where Dean can't see. They are the biggest ones, pushing aside the network of chains that webs through all of hell with the smallest of twitches. They are all six massive, black and gossamer, and they play a spectrum of colors from an iridescent ruddy brown to a purpled gray when the light catches them. And the light. The light is coming from those wings, and not just them, its emanating through every part of both of Castiel's bodies, shining brightest from his feathers and in the eyes of those faces.

He swears he can see millennia in those eyes.

It's almost nerve-racking how humanoid Castiel really is, but at the same time, Dean can't bring himself to care, because it’s the most purely beautiful image he has ever seen in his life. Or afterlife, or whatever, just _fuck_. Why would Castiel show him this? How could he ever fucking deserve this?

And then Dean is being pulled up and out of the Pit, dragged by those hands, and he is cringing because his ears hurt and he doesn't know why until he looks back up to the multifaceted head and sees each animal screaming a cacophony. He knows why. Demons have begun to chase after the angel, grabbing at anything to hold it back, especially its largest pair of wings, clawing through the beautiful feathers and shredding them in the process, chains and hooks tearing through brilliant flesh.

Wings. Up there, in the barn, they had looked so rumpled. And now he remembered why.

The images stop with that thought, and Dean is staggering back into his mind in the barn, Castiel standing in front of him, still staring. It's hard to focus, but Dean looks at the body and imagines those ruined wings brushing at it's back, protecting it.

Castiel smiles at him. He looks pleased with himself, though Dean can't be sure why, can't be sure of anything right now as his brain and body desperately try to reboot. And then the angel is gone.

He is left gasping and staring blankly into the empty space that Castiel, angel of the Lord, has left behind. He makes a mildly frantic survey of the graffitied barn with his eyes, looking for the angel. Only then does he realize that Bobby is still there, unconscious though he is, and as he stumbles to his aide, it dawns on Dean just how powerful this creature really is. Castiel appearing in the first place had just been a courtesy call. The ritual couldn't have actually summoned something that powerful against its will. Dean can never bottle this beautiful creature, can never control or destroy it, and Dean comes to the revelation, with some vague sense of horror, that he never wants to.


End file.
